Pirages:Brookshaw (ca. 1751-1823) was a successful London cabinet-maker whose painted Neoclassical furniture attracted such titled enthusiasts as the Duke of Devonshire and the Prince of Wales, but he suddenly abandoned this livelihood in the 1790s. Art historian Lucy Wood speculates that the sudden change was prompted by involvement in a financial or sexual scandal, as he also parted company with his (wealthy) wife around this time. He spent a decade living under the name "G. Brown," teaching flower painting to refined young ladies before producing his first manual, "A New Treatise of Flower Painting," which was.